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As unpredictable as the courts may be, one thing you can usually count on is that Republican judicial appointeees are more likely than Democrats to side with the prosecution in criminal cases and vote to uphold convictions.

Usually. But not always.

When a panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco voted 2-1 Monday to uphold a drug conviction based on a government sting operation in Arizona, the majority consisted of Democratic appointees, who said the defendant had “readily agreed to participate” in a fictitious crime concocted by federal agents. The dissenting judge, John Noonan — appointed to the court in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan — said the government had entrapped the defendant, and the court should dismiss the case as an act of “humane justice.”

The court had been down this road once before, in October 2013. Another sting operation led by the same agent had trolled for potential drug thieves in a poor neighborhood, offered the prospect of a big payday for robbing a supposed drug supply house, and had officers waiting when the would-be robbers arrived. Another 2-1 majority of Democratic appointees voted to uphold the convictions over an indignant dissent by Noonan, who said the government tactics endangered “values of equality, fairness and liberty.”

One note on Noonan: Before his appointment, he was a Catholic scholar best known for his writings against abortion. As a judge, he’s sided with conservatives on such issues as reproduction and the right to die, but not so much on issues like crime and immigration.

Monday’s case involved Alex Pedrin Jr., who was recruited in Tucson in 2009 by an undercover agent who described himself as a disgruntled cocaine ourier. He told Pedrin and his nephew that he was looking for someone to take 40 to 50 kilos of cocaine from a local stash house. The court said the two men agreed and lined up three others for the robbery, but got arrested instead. Pedrin, who according to a prosecution witness had carried out many previous stash-house robberies, was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to 17 1/2 years in prison. His nephew was deported.

Relying on the 2013 ruling in the earlier sting case, the appeals court rejected a defense claim that the conviction should be overturned because of outrageous government conduct. Although the fictitious crime was set up by government agents, Judge William Fletcher said, Pedrin and his nephew quickly accepted their offer and indicated by their conduct that they had committed similar crimes in the past. Pedrin “supplied plans and materials,” Fletcher said, and the agents learned enough about him to infer that he had a “predisposition to take part in the planned robbery.” In other words, he said, they weren’t planting ideas that didn’t already exist.

Fletcher, appointed by President Bill Clinton, was joined by Judge Morgen Christen, an appointee of President Obama. Noonan disagreed with both of them and said the only “predisposition” in this case was held by federal agents, who laid out the plans for the crime and induced Pedrin — about whom they previously knew nothing — to commit it.

“As a court, we are more than referees tallying scores,” Noonan lectured his colleagues. “We have a live concern that human beings caught in the legal process be trated fairly.”

You can judge for yourselves at http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2015/08/17/11-10623.pdf.